Research: Over USD 25bn loss to operators in roaming revenue

Published on : Thursday, April 2, 2020

During the next nine months a new analysis from Juniper Research shows the impact of Coronavirus on the international travel industry which will cost network operators more than USD25 billion in lost revenue.

Medium and high impact scenarios were examined by Juniper Research which believed that a low impact was not possible now.

There will be severe disruption in international travel in the high impact scenario which will continue for nine months as there will be travel restrictions and reduced demand for international travel will continue.

There will be a significant impact on operators’ international roaming revenue.

Juniper believes that in the high impact scenario over 650 million passenger trips will be cancelled due to coronavirus over the next nine months. This is over 80% of the anticipated international passenger trips that were previously forecast before the spread of the virus.

Over half of all roaming revenue for the year will be affected, amounting to USD 25bn in lost revenue. It is also mentioned that the period between June and August as of particular significance when the demand for international travel is high. It forecast that operators could lose up to USD 12bn in roaming revenue alone in these three months.

The global roaming revenue only accounts for approximately 6% of total operator-billed revenue per year, limiting the hit on the industry.

The research anticipated there will be no strategies available to operators to mitigate this loss. Services like virtual conferencing, will offer businesses an alternative to international travel, but will offer no benefit to operators.

The research highlighted that travel cancelled due to the spread of Coronavirus is unlikely to be rebooked.